


i'm a ghost when i walk in (holy spirit when i walk out)

by notcaycepollard



Series: the grace in monsters [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of PTSD, ptsd-related trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9782591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: Remembering is like nothing.It’s like nothing and like everything all at once. He’s two people or three or four, crowded in together against the bone of his skull. Tight in the skin of him. Startling as if he’s coming sudden into himself, coalescing like smoke into the shape of a person.Finding his way back, that's harder.





	

Remembering is like nothing.

It’s like nothing and like everything all at once. He’s two people or three or four, crowded in together against the bone of his skull. Tight in the skin of him. Startling as if he’s coming sudden into himself, coalescing like smoke into the shape of a person.

 

Finding his way back, that's harder.

He doesn’t have anywhere to start, no thread to catch to trace all the way back to Steve. It should be easier than this, he thinks, but it’s not. It’s choppy and chaotic and Bucky’s adrift in it all. And then he spots a face familiar even as it’s not.

Gabe, Bucky thinks at first, brain all mixed up with what's real now and what's seventy years ago, and shakes his head at himself. _Sam_ , his memories supply. A man with wings.

He’s seen this man before, seen him with Steve and without him. Sitting in a cafe with an untouched cup of coffee in front of him, waiting for Bucky to appear even as Bucky never does.

It’s simple, then, to follow him home, to let this be the thread that tugs him back into personhood. A building full of people Bucky doesn’t know, and one person he does, and he walks right in. Finds Steve alone, and suddenly everything he could have said is gone. Words in his mouth like ash, and he just looks at Steve for a long, long time.

“Hi,” he says in the end, and Steve takes a breath.

“I thought you might come back,” Steve murmurs, “I thought-” Blinks hard. Stares down at the surface of the table, doesn't make eye contact. Bucky swallows.

_I thought you were smaller_ , he wants to say. Feels the edge of a memory over older memories. Steve’s shoulders curl in like his body remembers being smaller too, like this is a ghost that lives inside him. Bucky knows the feeling.

_Perhaps I was a ghost before I ever walked out of that base, Stevie. An angel appearing to shepherd me home and I just up and left my body like I was too tired to go on._

_Were you there? Did you hold me real and solid and bone-cold in your arms or did I just imagine remembering trying to forget that? Your hands were hot like blood and I wanted more, I wanted it to burn like the liquor I couldn’t get drunk off. What you took out of that base wasn’t your old pal. Did I die and turn revenant on you, am I nothing but a shade, will I haunt you until you forget the color of my eyes._

He holds it back. Watches Steve sigh.

“Jesus,” Steve mutters, “Bucky, Jesus _fuck_ , I-” and drags his hand over his face. Looks defeated, and lets out a long breath before he gets up and leaves the room.

“Well,” Bucky says out loud to himself in the silence of the empty room, “that could have gone better.”

 

If he's being honest, he kind of expected- well, it's just that Rogers was such a goddamn pain in the Soldier's ass. _I'm not going to fight you. You're my friend._ And before that, Bucky remembers. Tinged with resentment. Steve Rogers would fucking march behind enemy lines to get Bucky back. Damn near followed him right off a goddamn train and straight into the cold arms of death.

It ain't like Bucky was expecting Steve to fall weeping on his neck, or anything. It's just, he kind of thought-

“It's hard,” he hears Steve say, and someone murmuring a reply. The overheard snippet of conversation has him drifting closer on quiet feet. He knew how to walk soft before he ever became the Soldier.

“Don't push it,” Sam replies, “just take it slow, man.” Voice gentle, and Bucky suddenly wonders what it’d be like to have someone talk to him that way. To hear someone murmur to him so soft. He wants it, he thinks, he wants this man Sam to welcome him home, to say _yes. Yes, you can stay. Yes._  

“I just want to- and I can't even _talk_ -”

“You'll talk when you're ready,” Sam tells him. “Just give it time, Steve.”

“I've _had_ time,” Steve snaps. Scrubs a hand over his face again like he doesn’t want anyone to see how he’s crying, like he’s ashamed of this somehow. “Jesus. Sorry. I shouldn’t have- I’m sorry, Sam. Time, huh? That’s what it’ll take?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, that’s all.”

_What about for me_ , Bucky wants to ask. _Is time all I need, too?_ Can’t help but feel like he exists, somehow, outside the passage of time entirely these days.

 

Perhaps, Bucky thinks, it might be easier to start with Sam on this.

It’s simple to consider where Sam might be. To wait for him in his room. Bucky wants to poke around, wants to brush his fingers over the books on the shelves. Restrains himself to just studying the photos, his hands shoved in his pockets, and he’s so deep in contemplation he hardly even hears the door open.

“Oh-” Sam says, voice startled. Bucky glances up just in time to catch how Sam jumps about a foot. “Oh _Jesus_ , you're-”

“It's Sam, right? I think I threw you off a helicarrier once,” Bucky says, because that seems like a good place to start. “Not exactly what I'd count as meeting, though. Guess I owe you an apology. Wasn't exactly myself, is the thing.”

“You came back as- you- to _apologize_ ,” Sam says, wide-eyed, and Bucky shrugs. Picks at a loose thread on his jacket cuff.

“Came back because I was lonely,” he admits. It's the truth, when he gets down to it. Was tired of memory swirling in him like a ghost. Tired of existing separately from the world around him. “You think anyone’d mind if I stay?”

“Here,” Sam says like he's clarifying. “You- _here._ ”

“I found an empty room down the end of the hall,” Bucky says. “Didn't seem like anyone was using it. What is this place, anyway? Some kinda barracks?”

“It's the Avengers facility,” Sam tells him, “it’s supposed to be secure. Impossible to get into. I guess that wasn't a problem for you.”

“Just walked right in,” Bucky says. Tries a smile, crooked at the corners. “So, you think I can have that room? Or do I gotta come and bunk with you?” _I wouldn't mind_ , he thinks, and maybe it shows on his face, because Sam's eyes get wider like he's just realized he's being flirted with.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Sam sighs, like he is very, very tired. “This isn't what I signed up for. You know what, Barnes, you want that room, it's yours. Just try not to sneak up on me in the night, would you? And if you’re gonna murder us all in our sleep, don’t wake me up first.”

“I’m offended you’d think I would,” Bucky tells him. “What the fuck do you think I am? I ain’t the Soldier.”

“No,” Sam says. Looks him up and down. “No, I guess you’re not, are you.”

Bucky’s not sure what he is, when it comes down to it. Might be something or nothing. The shape of someone who used to be a person such a long, long time ago.

 

It’s. _Lonely_. No lonelier than Bucharest, not really. He’s used to it, _should_ be used to it, the way people’s eyes slide sideways over him, but it feels somehow different here. As if the intimacy of the team base should translate, perhaps. It doesn't. Bucky drifts through the halls, talks to no one. Doesn't make eye contact.

It's only natural, maybe, that he winds up following Sam around a lot.

“Ugh,” Sam says, when Bucky shows up outside his room for the third time, but he doesn’t close his door. Just tilts his head, and Bucky settles into the chair in the corner, watches Sam unpause whatever it is he was watching on TV.

“Do you like it here?” he asks, eventually, and Sam looks like he's considering the question very thoughtfully.

“I miss my house,” he says after a long pause, “and my old job. But I kind of lost that when I, uh…”

“When SHIELD fell,” Bucky says. Doesn't feel the need to mention his own part in it.

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “When SHIELD fell. It’s not so bad here. Part of a team.” The show finishes and Sam switches channels until he finds something else, a movie in the middle of its opening credits. Movies are better than they used to be, Bucky thinks.

“Fuck it,” Sam says suddenly, “if we’re doing the late night movie thing, I’m making popcorn,” and disappears off into the kitchen for five minutes, comes back with a paper bag that smells of grease and salt. “You want any?”

“Nah,” Bucky says, “I’m good.” Memory swimming up from somewhere deep, and he starts laughing. “I ate a whole carton once,” he tells Sam. “Threw up on Steve’s shoes. Could never stand the taste of it after that. Still smells good, though.”

“You _threw up on his shoes_ ,” Sam repeats flatly, fistful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. “Why’s he never told me this before?”

“Too embarrassing,” Bucky shrugs. “Or maybe he just doesn’t like speaking ill of the dead.”

There’s not really much to say after that. They watch the movie in silence. It’s not a bad film, really. Bucky likes the special effects.

The popcorn does smell good, he thinks. Glances at Sam, when he thinks he can get away with it. When Sam is caught up in the story. Butter smudged on his lower lip, traces of salt sparkling just a little in the light of the TV.

_Am I more of a person now_ , he wonders, _now that you know my secrets from back when I used to be human,_ and catches himself wishing he could lick the salt off of Sam’s mouth.

 

Something about the compound, or about Bucky’s internal body clock, has him all late nights. He doesn’t fight it. Evenings he’s not pushing Sam through the best of the 80s and 90s action movie line-up, he haunts the corridors, holes up in his room, sits contemplative in the communal kitchen for hours. A test, maybe, of how quiet he can get.

Apparently, he can get way too quiet, based on the way Sam jumps when he spots Bucky all half in shadow. Bucky feels a little bad, maybe. Sam’s getting spooked by him way too often, recently.

“What the hell, man,” Sam says, sounding tired and pissed-off, and Bucky smiles soft in the corner of his mouth as apology.

“Sorry I startled you, sweetheart,” he drawls, and Sam sighs.

“It’s fine. I’m used to it. You have a habit of lurking in dark corners, did you know?”

“Well,” Bucky says, hearing how his voice goes playful and powerless to stop it, “yeah. Historically, that’s been a thing for me, darlin’.”

“Oh, _historically_ ,” Sam mutters. Fills the kettle and sets it on the stove. “I’m making tea, you want one?”

“I hate tea,” Bucky says. Remembers, unbidden, how Carter used to drink it, fine china no matter where she went. Pulls his cigarettes out of his pocket. “You mind if I smoke?”

“Fuck it,” Sam shrugs, “yeah, whatever, go ahead.”

Bucky takes his time lighting a cigarette. Watches Sam fuss with the sugar, the mugs on the shelf.

“Steve still won't talk to me, you know that?”

“You did kind of die on him,” Sam points out, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but it ain't like I didn't come back. And that was years and years ago, shit, he coulda gotten over it by now.”

“Years, huh? How does time even work for you?”

“I dunno,” Bucky shrugs. “I got gaps.” Some days it feels like he’s more gaps than solid memory, incorporeal like fading smoke. The aftereffects of whatever Hydra did, hollowing him out until he’s only barely form and substance. Like, maybe, he’s a little less vivid than the world. Untethered to or by it.

_Depersonalization is a normal reaction to severe trauma_ , he remembers overhearing Sam say once. On the phone, maybe. It sounded like a therapist thing to say, except it’d stuck. He’d looked it up later. Seems about right, yeah.

 

When Sam’s tea is done brewing, he sits down at the table. Looks at Bucky smoking, and Bucky taps away the ash, looks right back at Sam. The light from the lamp over the stove is catching on his cheekbones, and the steam from his tea makes him hazy, soft-edged. Not quite real, maybe. Bucky smiles at that, and Sam frowns.

“What?” he says, and Bucky shrugs.

“You just look… blurred out, is all. I like it.”

“Oh, you _like_ it,” Sam says, and that’s the cue for Steve to come in, footsteps heavier than Bucky ever remembers them being.

“You smoking now?” Steve asks, frowning a little, and Sam shakes his head.

“No,” he says, “wasn't me.”

“It's weird,” Steve says, “smells just like the Lucky Strikes Bucky used to like.”

“No fucking shit,” Bucky mutters, “they still make ‘em.” Sam turns a laugh into a cough. Smiles at Bucky as he leaves the room.

 

“I just hate it,” Bucky says later. Sitting, now, at the very foot of Sam's bed. Far enough away from him he couldn't be characterized as a threat, although Bucky knows better than to think that way.

He's always been a threat. Proximity won't change that.

“You hate it?” Sam asks, voice soft with sleep, and Bucky sighs. Shrugs one-shouldered.

“Steve,” he says, and pauses to think of how to phrase what comes next. The silence lengthens until Bucky thinks how that wasn't a comma but a full sentence, how _Steve_ can be the entire answer to that question. “I don't hate Steve,” he clarifies. “I just.” He bites his lip. “When I came out of Azzano. I’d already… it was like I was already fading into Steve’s shadow. They made him so bright, what else was I but an afterimage?” Bucky chews his thumbnail thoughtfully. “Sorry,” he adds. “It ain’t your shit to deal with, Sam. I’ll- just go back to sleep, wouldja, I’ll let you-”

“Barnes,” Sam murmurs. “You don’t have to go,” and when Bucky looks at him, his eyes look like he means it, so Bucky doesn’t. Just sits back down at the foot of Sam’s bed, and listens to Sam slowly, slowly fall asleep.

 

Meeting someone else, it’s unexpected.

Sam’s back from mission, heating up a frozen burrito which looks sadder than it’s got any right to be, and Bucky’s just tagging along. Keeping him company, is all, except there’s someone else in the kitchen, someone Bucky doesn’t know, and when she glances up she looks right at Bucky, frowns just a little.

“You've got a ghost trailing you, Sam,” she says, a note of curiosity in her voice, and Sam sighs.

“Yeah, I know. He has a habit of following me around. It’s like he’s a stray cat or something. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey,” Bucky protests. Makes to shove Sam's shoulder, letting the gesture sketch by without quite touching. “Just because you're good company. He actually talks to me, right. Everyone else is still sore at me. Guess they can't help it, huh, the shit Hydra had me do.” He smiles winningly at her. Feels the shape of it familiar on his face. He's always been good at being charming. “Hi,” he adds. “I'm Bucky.” Boosts himself up to sit on the kitchen counter, smirking at Sam.

“Oh, _you're_ Bucky,” she says. Turns to Sam. “He doesn't know-”

“No,” Sam says, “no, I don't think so.”

“Has Steve-”

“Know what?” Bucky interrupts, and she hums half under her breath. Glances up at Bucky like she's sizing him up.

“Wanda’s a witch,” Sam tells him.

“What, like, spells, and stuff?”

“Not spells,” she says. “I guess you could call it magic of a kind. Quantum state entanglement.” Substance swirling red at her fingertips, and yeah, that's magic alright.

“Huh,” Bucky says. “Neat.”

It is. It’s neat. Watching it ravel and unravel, the thread of it, he’s fascinated. More interesting than watching Sam cook his sad microwave burrito, that’s for sure.

“Do you think-” Bucky says later, as they’re settling in for the movie, and pauses to reconsider. It’s too late. Sam’s already looking at him.

“What.”

“Do you… you think Wanda might want to watch it with us?”

“Oh, you got a crush?” Sam asks, sly through a mouthful of refried beans, and Bucky scowls.

“No.” _Yes_. “Just nice to see another face, that’s all.”

“Are you lonely?”

Bucky takes a deep breath before replying.

“No,” he says eventually, “how could I be lonely with you around, sweetheart?”

It’s almost, almost the truth.

 

“Hey,” Steve says one day, poking his head into Sam’s room. “I’m gonna drive out to visit Peggy this afternoon, okay?”

“Carter’s still alive?” Bucky asks, sitting up from where he’s lying aimlessly across Sam’s bed. Sam nods.

“Yeah,” he says, and it could be to Bucky or to Steve, could be both, but-

“Hey,” Bucky says, “Steve, wait up,” and follows him out to the car.

Carter’s old, and it’s a shock. The way he and Steve exist out of time, it’s easy to forget. He hadn’t even thought, is the thing. Hadn’t even considered it. Should have thought- should have _known_ , but here they are, here she is, still sharp like she knows he’s up to nothing good and she’s curious what it’s gonna be this time around.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she murmurs, and Bucky grins at her.

“Heya, sweetheart. Been a while, huh.”

“Are you here to take me away?” Peggy asks, bright and confused all at once, and Bucky bites his lip. Shakes his head.

“Who're you talking to, Peg?” Steve asks gently, and Peggy glances across to him.

“Bucky, of course,” she says like it's obvious. It's _fucking obvious,_ Bucky thinks, he's right goddamn here.

“Oh,” Steve says, though, and his face does something tragic and complicated.

“Sorry,” Bucky tells Peggy. “I’ll leave the two of you alone.” Steps out into the hall, his chest aching. It’s always been that way between the three of them. Steve and Peggy burning so bright there’s not enough air left in the room for Bucky to draw breath. _I’m invisible_ , he thinks, memory over memory again the way it is so often now. _I disappeared long ago. Faded into the red of her lipstick brighter than blood. You only had to look at her and I knew there was no room for me, and you know, Steve, I still love her all these years later._

_Are you here to take me away, she asked me, as if I’d ever._

 

“How’s she doing?” Sam asks when they get back, and Steve sighs.

“Not so great, today,” he says, quiet like it hurts him to admit it. “She was drifting. Kept talking to Bucky.”

“Fuckin’ _excuse me_ for being polite to Agent Carter,” Bucky snaps, and Sam shakes his head.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have…” he starts. Ducks his head, frowns deeply for a minute or two. “Okay, look, Steve, we gotta talk about Bucky.”

“What do you mean, talk about Bucky?” Steve says. Laughs a little like it hurts. “I had to decide what to tell her. She remembered him falling. Couldn’t figure out what-”

“Steve,” Sam says, more urgent, and Steve laughs again harder.

“Bucky's _dead_ ,” he says. “You said I’d be able to talk about it eventually, right? Shit, I can't- I- fuck, I put a plane down in the ocean the first time he fell. I thought it'd get easier. I thought I'd get over it. You know, I never actually grieved for him properly the first time. Didn't have _time_ , fuck.”

“What the fuck do you mean, I'm dead,” Bucky demands. Stares at Steve. “You think just because I was the Soldier that means I'm gone? You _told_ me, Steve. You told me I'd remember. Here the fuck I am, remembering, and now you think I'm gone?”

“Bucky-” Sam says, voice painful, “he’s not-”

“No, what the _fuck,_ ” Bucky says, louder. “Here I am waiting and waiting for Steve to even acknowledge me, to treat me like a goddamn _person_ , and he won't even look at me. I don't know why the fuck I came back. You just keep telling him to give it time, as if _time's_ got anything to do with it.” He stands up, sudden, and his chair clatters sideways to the floor. Steve jumps like he's startled. Stares at it.

“Did you…”

“No,” Sam sighs. Looks at Bucky. “Sit down.”

“I am sitting down,” Steve says like he's confused. Bucky frowns.

“Not you. Sit _down_ , Bucky.”

“This is cruel,” Steve whispers, “Sam, I know Peggy was drifting but _you…_ ”

“I'm not being cruel,” Sam tells him. “I'm- fuck, okay, this is gonna sound crazy. Steve, Bucky's right here.”

“What do you mean, right here,” Steve says, overlapped with Bucky. “What the fuck, ‘sound crazy’, I'm sitting right here.”

“He can't see you,” Sam tells Bucky. “He's never been able to see you, okay? You're not-”

“Sam, what-”

“Shut up, Steve,” Sam says. Takes a deep breath. “Bucky, you…”

“No,” Bucky says. Cold down his spine. “No, no, that’s not, _no_. Don’t. Sam, don’t.”

“There was a bomb,” Sam whispers. Very quiet and very measured, like it’s costing him something to say this. “In Bucharest. Hydra knew they couldn’t take you in so they decided to take you out. There were no survivors.”

“But I’m _right fucking here_ ,” Bucky says, and Sam closes his eyes for a second. Looks down at his hands, spread flat on the table, and then reaches out like he’s about to brush his fingers along the back of Bucky’s wrist.

He’s never touched Bucky before now, Bucky realizes, and abruptly wants Sam’s fingers on his skin more than anything he has ever wanted. Wants it so bad it hurts.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t.”

It’s too late. Sam’s fingers drift not along his skin but through him, solid through fog, and it’s everything Bucky never realized was wrong.

 

“Fuck,” he says after a minute or two. “ _Fuck_. I’m a-”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. Glances at Steve. “He can’t see you, is the thing.”

“You’re telling me Bucky’s right there,” Steve says, and Sam rolls his eyes.

“Jesus fuck, Steve, what kind of Irish are you, no second sight? Mrs Kennedy down the way’d be ashamed of you,” Bucky snaps, and Sam repeats it, tone-perfect. Steve’s eyes widen.

“Oh,” he says, and then, again, “ _oh_. Buck- Bucky?” Voice breaking in two, and Bucky’d ache for him if he wasn’t too busy looking at Sam. It’s an inconvenient time to realize that what he's feeling is-

“Oh,” Bucky says, an echo of Steve. “Shit.”

 

It turns out it’s tough to hold a conversation with someone who can’t see or hear you. Steve’s… not difficult, exactly, but the way he shoots questions at Sam, Bucky can’t help but get defensive.

“How long has he-”

“Couple of months?” Sam says, and Bucky shakes his head.

“Longer,” he says, “wasn’t it winter when I got here?”

“The bomb was November, so-”

“You never told me,” Steve says, complexly hurt. Sam frowns.

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Steve, I think your best friend is haunting me’? That would have been a fun conversation to have.”

“Anyway,” Bucky adds, “you never told _me_ , either,” and Sam looks up at that, shoulders slumping.

“It seemed cruel,” he admits. “Wanda thought I should tell you.”

“ _Wanda_ knows?” Steve asks, then, and in what seems like no time at all Wanda’s in their kitchen too, impatient with the whole thing.

“Hi,” Bucky says, incapable of not trying, at least, to be charming. Probably failing, based on her expression. “I’m getting a whole bunch of new information today, lemme tell you,” and she rolls her eyes. Glances at Steve, still all furrowed brow and hurt mouth, and rolls her eyes harder, sighs heavily.

“Here,” she says. Brushes her fingers to Steve’s temple. Red swirling in a faint mist, and Steve blinks. Blinks again.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, all wide-eyed surprise, “there you are,” as if Bucky might have been anywhere else. As if Sam might have been making this shit up, perhaps.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Here I am.” _Here I’ve always been_ , is what he means, except it’s like he exists now in a way he didn’t before. _Am I real if I don’t have your eyes on me_ , he thinks before he can help it.

It’s the wrong question to be asking, anyway. It’s not _Steve_ he wants looking at him.

 

Much later, he’s lying on Sam’s bed, just the way he does every night. Wondering, now, why Sam ever let him, but he doesn’t want to stop, not yet.

“I thought I might be-” he admits, painful. “I thought, once. Wondered if I was. Thought I was just being dramatic. You could have told me.”

“Oh, what, ‘Barnes, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're kind of dead.’ Like that's a conversation I could start.”

“Just drop some hints,” Bucky says. Turns his head to the side, grins crooked at Sam. “Like, shit, I dunno. ‘You’re fading away, Bucky, have you tried eating something or maybe not being dead?’ That could work.”

“Oh,” Sam snorts, “yeah, smooth. Real tactful.”

“Shit,” Bucky sighs, “better than the alternative, ain’t it.” His hand is resting close to Sam’s; if he concentrates very hard, he can almost feel the warmth. Sam makes a face.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sincere, and Bucky shakes his head.

“Ain’t your fault, sweetheart. I’m the one got blown up before I ever even-” He cuts himself off. Gnaws his lip. “It’s just,” he adds, too honest by half, “it’d have been nice if I was alive when I met you, is all.”

“Yeah,” Sam whispers. “Yeah, it would have been, huh.”

Bucky lets himself look at Sam just a little longer. The soft curve of his mouth, the warmth of his eyes. Gives in to his impulse, finally, and reaches out like maybe he can brush Sam’s hand. Like they could link their little fingers together, perhaps.

They can’t. He knows it, and Sam shivers as Bucky’s fingers drift through him. _A ghost walking over your grave_ , Bucky thinks, and closes his eyes.

 

He’s not really sure where to go from here. Even now that others can see him, the knowing feels wrong. _Aren’t you supposed to fade_ , he thinks to himself, _aren’t you supposed to disappear? You’re dead, Barnes, get with the program._ Maybe they need an exorcism. Something to smudge him away.

He just _wants_ , is all. Was barely even a person again before they wiped him away again. It ain’t fair, it ain’t _fair_ , he feels like a child shouting at the sky about it. The sky doesn’t care.

“You think we could watch a movie?” he asks Sam, standing at his door, and Sam shrugs.

“We never reached Alien vs Predator,” he says, like it’s that simple.

Perhaps it is. Bucky shit-talks Sam so successfully during the movie Sam resorts to throwing popcorn at him, and Bucky just cackles.

“You’re only getting popcorn in your own bed,” he points out, and Sam sighs.

“Fuck, I am,” he says, and flings another piece right at Bucky’s forehead.

 

“I had a friend,” Sam says one night. Very late, so late it’s early, and they’ve turned the volume down so that the credits of whatever it is they were watching are scrolling by silent and unread. Sam’s voice sounds softer than usual, like he’s telling a secret, and Bucky holds himself still. Doesn’t need to hold his breath.

“I had a friend,” Sam says again, quiet. Bucky listens to the pause spin out until he’s almost convinced Sam might not have said anything at all, and then Sam takes another breath like it hurts. “I thought- I _hoped_ , a little, when he died, that he might… and then _you_ came back instead, and I was so-”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers. _I’m sorry_ , like maybe he could have interceded with fate. Sent back someone else in his place.

“No,” Sam says. “No, that’s not… I miss Riley, lord knows I do, but… you showed up, right, the Winter Soldier in my _fucking bedroom_ , scared me half to death, and all I could think was, _why’d he come back for Steve when Riley couldn’t come back for me_. And then it turns out Steve couldn’t even- fuck, it was like some sad joke from the universe.”

There’s nothing Bucky can say. Words that fade out on his tongue: _I’m sorry I’m not who you wanted_ , and hoping, under it all, _hoping_ -

“Maybe it’s better that way,” Sam says, like he wants to believe it. “Riley moved on, right? He’s in- fuck, I don’t know. Heaven? That’s better, right?”

It’s a question Bucky’s not equipped to answer. He doesn’t know what might lie ahead, whether he’s caught here in this half-life, the ins and outs and whys of it all.

_You were the thread I followed back_ , he wants to say, _can’t I- maybe I could be who you want now, right?_

“Yeah,” he says, after a long, long pause. “That’s. Better.” He hopes it’s what Sam wants to hear. The way Sam sighs, he thinks, maybe it’s not.

 

It’s Wanda who finds Bucky in his own room. Magic on her fingertips like always, and Bucky’s always been just a little in awe of her, the sense that she can see right through him figuratively as well as literally.

“I have something,” she says, “for you.”

It’s a crimson thread, looped and knotted back on itself, and Bucky is uncomfortably aware of how his eyes slide past it like he can’t quite focus on its construction. _Quantum state entanglement_ , he remembers her saying, and holds out his arm before she even explains what it’ll do.

It’s like- it’s the same and it’s different all at once. Colors brighter, and when Wanda pulls the knot tight around his wrist, everything slides into sudden and startling vividness.

“Oh-” he says, shocked, and Wanda laughs. Touches her fingers to his.

“I think you can control it,” she tells him, and he concentrates on the itch of magic on his skin, feels himself fade unsolid and then snap back corporeal.

“I…” _Thank you_ , he’s about to say, when she makes a harsh noise.

“You’re not alive,” she says, abrupt and sharp-edged. “I can’t give you… You’re not quite dead, perhaps. That’s all. I tried to understand how to send you on. I got this instead.”

Wanda lost someone, Bucky remembers Sam saying. Her brother, her twin, a wound that still stings. Everyone’s lost someone, here. The unfairness of it, over and over.

“Thank you,” he says anyway, because it’s not life, but it’s a gift close enough to it.

 

He’s not sure, exactly, how to approach Sam. Physicality and embodiment is a difficult thing to adjust to, turns out. _You’re not alive_ , he hears in his head, but for the first time in as long as he can remember, he’s hungry, and that seems as alive as anything else.

Turns out he can cross both bridges at once: Sam’s in the kitchen fucking around with the waffle machine, and Bucky clears his throat, steps in close.

“Smells good,” he murmurs, and Sam turns too-quick, smacks Bucky in the shoulder.

“You-” he says, eyes wide, and Bucky’s about to start explaining when Sam grabs him by the shirt, pulls him in even closer.

“Hi,” Bucky whispers. Sam is warm and solid against him, all big dark eyes and long, long lashes. The sweetness of his smile makes Bucky ache. “Surprise.”

“You’re _real_ ,” Sam says, like maybe Bucky will disappear between this breath and the next, and in the end it’s on Bucky to kiss Sam just to show how real he is.

 

Figuring things out is easy and strange all at once after that. Finding the edges of reality, testing out how far the magic goes, and Bucky fades in and out and in again like a Polaroid photograph developing and undeveloping.

“I bet you can walk through walls,” Sam suggests, lazily amused, and Bucky _can_ , does it half a dozen times before Sam grabs him by the hair and threatens never to kiss him again if he pulls that shit one more time. Bucky wheezes and wheezes with laughter, bent double, but he takes the warning.

“I don’t got the arm,” Bucky realizes, much later than he should, and it’s Sam’s turn to laugh, to trace his fingers from Bucky’s shoulder to his wrist.

“You never did,” he tells Bucky, “it’s one of the first things I noticed. You never figured that out before now?”

“Wasn’t exactly focused on it,” Bucky shrugs. Rolls over to kiss Sam again, to grab him with both hands. It’s good, it’s so _good_ , he’s half-afraid he’ll lose it all again. Probably bleeds through, his desperation, but Sam doesn’t seem to mind.

It’s Sam who suggests he joins the team, and Bucky’s so thrown by it at first he just stares. Sam brings it up again over breakfast, tests the waters with Steve, and Bucky’s not sure exactly what Steve might say. Bucky’s existence is… complicated, when it comes to Steve. He’s the ghost of someone who used to exist and never quite existed all at once.

“Fuck it,” Steve says, “why not. We’ve got a witch and a robot and a tin man, why not add a ghost to the team.”

Why not, why not, and that’s how Bucky becomes an Avenger, a ghost who can slip in and out more silent than any spy. He spars with Nat and Steve sometimes, just for fun. Disappears out from under them, coalescing again half-solid and teasing a foot away from their punch. Sam never rises to the bait.

“Nah,” he says, “I’m good,” and when he touches Bucky there’s never a question of Bucky sliding out or away. It’s like Bucky is knitting himself together again under Sam’s hands, and when he’s almost, almost a person, perhaps that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> this fought me the whole way _and_ it was only supposed to be a ficlet, so: joke's on me, I guess
> 
> I am [on tumblr!](http://notcaycepollard.tumblr.com/) come yell at me about soft mythical bucky barnes, I am forever a sucker!


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